Saturday, 5 October 2013

2 Corinthians: Like master, like servant

It
is significant that Paul, the apostle of Christ, listing the persecution of the
Jewish forty lashes minus one and stoning as well as the Roman rod (2 Cor.
11:24-25), suffers at the hands of Jews and Gentiles (11:26) and their rulers
(11:32).Paul knew himself to be
following in the footsteps of his Lord Jesus, God’s anointed, against whom both
Israel and the Gentiles and their respective leaders had gathered together (Acts
4:27).Paul’s commission as an apostle
was to carry Christ’s name “before the Gentiles and kings and the children of
Israel” (Acts 9:15).The nature of Paul’s
suffering (Acts 9:16), far from causing doubt about his legitimacy as a servant of Christ,
should rather have been a confirmation of his apostleship to any church that
really “got” the gospel.Their confused
judgment shows just how far from the cross of Christ the Corinthians had turned
their gaze through the influence of the false apostles.